


I see you with me

by nothingbutniall



Series: we were just kids [2]
Category: WTFock | Skam (Belgium)
Genre: Childhood Memories, F/M, Home Videos, WTFock Season 2, babies in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-08-09 22:22:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20124787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingbutniall/pseuds/nothingbutniall
Summary: After Zoë finds a picture of her and Senne as kids, Senne's mother sends them some home videos.





	I see you with me

**Author's Note:**

> Couldn't get the thought of baby Senne and baby Zoë meeting out of my head after my first fic, so here's some more backstory.
> 
> (Title comes from Niall Horan's You And Me.)

Senne’s phone pings where it fell to the ground earlier that day. At the time, they’d been occupied with other, more pressing matters, such as wrestling for the last cupcake, and Senne hadn’t bothered to pick it up afterwards. Zoë has warned him that someone will step on it and break the screen, but the threat of having to get his screen repaired is ineffective when he could buy the newest iPhone without batting an eye.

Senne stretches his arm out from where he’s splayed out on the bed, his arm clearly lacking a centimetre or hundred. “Help,” he yelps dramatically, flailing his hand.

Zoë rolls her eyes at him. She’s in love with an idiot.

Nonetheless, she gets up from where she’s sat folding laundry on the floor and picks the device up, unceremoniously dumping it on his stomach. She flops down on the bed as well, her neck cracking concerningly as she moves her head from side to side.

“Oh,” Senne says, sitting upright. “It’s my mum.”

“Is she telling you to throw your socks in the laundry instead of leaving them around the room? Because I agree.” Even without actively looking for them, Zoë can spot a pair of socks on the windowsill and a stray one near the desk. It used to be endearing, but she’s growing tired of it now.

He lightly kicks his foot at her leg. “Shut up.” He turns to show her the screen, revealing a Whatsapp conversation. “She sent me a video. Apparently, there is video evidence of our first meeting.”

“Is there?” Zoë props herself up on her elbows. “Can we watch it?”

“Sure.” He nods at the empty space next to him. “Come here then.”

She scoots up till she’s sitting next to him, shoulders pressed together, and Senne presses play. It’s only a five-minute video, but Zoë is curious to see the baby versions of her and Senne. His mother has already told them the Loockx and De Smet families had indeed been friends for a few years, their fathers working in the same field at the time. The children had only met a handful of times, one being the Christmas they spend together that was documented in Zoë’s picture box, and the friendship had slowly bled out after Zoë and her parents moved to Spain, so it was no surprise that neither Senne nor Zoë remembered having met before.

The video starts with a view of an empty living room, quality grainy and colours dull. It’s hard to believe it was filmed in 2006 – the difference in quality compared to videos nowadays was staggering, and the realisation that she’d been born in a time where smartphones were barely more than a futuristic dream makes her feel old for the first time in her sixteen years of age.

“This looks like it was filmed in cavemen times,” Senne notes, as if he read her thoughts.

The video cuts to the next clip then, a little blond girl looking up at the camera. Zoë doesn’t recognise her, but she is a carbon copy of Senne, save for the piercing blue eyes.

“Is that Amelie?” she asks softly, though she can pretty much guess based on the way Senne’s gone still beside her.

He nods almost invisibly, his bottom lip caught between his teeth.

Zoë rests her head on his shoulder. Usually, she knows exactly how to handle Senne, knows when he can handle playful teasing and when he needs words of encouragement and when he simply wants to be held, but she’s not sure how to comfort him now. They don’t talk about his family a lot, because what is there to say, when your parents are distant and your brother is a psychopath and your sister is dead?

Senne leans his head against hers, lacing their fingers together and resting them on her leg. On screen, Amelie is hanging the last ornaments in the Christmas tree, dark blue baubles matching her dress.

“She looks like you,” Zoë murmurs. When she lifts her head, Senne’s eyes are shiny, fixated on the screen as if he’s trying to burn the image of his baby sister into his brain forever. Zoë kisses his temple, letting her lips linger for a moment.

The screen changes again, showing the setting the photo was taken in. Senne is sat on the floor building a castle, Zoë copying him on a smaller scale right next to him. They don’t seem to acknowledge each other’s presence, until Senne’s high-pitched voice says: “Let’s build a bridge!”

They both laugh at his enthusiasm, watching their younger selves build said bridge. Once it’s finished, Senne dares Zoë to smash the castle down. It’s clear he doesn’t expect the younger girl to actually take him up on that challenge, but when she does, they both freeze for a moment before Senne’s lip wobbles and tears roll down his cheeks. “Mummy,” he wails through his sobs. “She broke it!”

Current Senne muffles his laugh in Zoë’s hair.

“Cry-baby,” she tells him, not even bothering to hide the fondness in her tone. Baby Senne is a gem, his big brown eyes making him look all innocent while the near-constant smile on his face is nothing but cheeky. Even through the crocodile tears he’s crying over the destroyed castle, there’s a hint of a smile shining through.

The clip cuts short mid-way through another drawn-out “_muuum_”, shifting to Senne asleep on the sofa, a chair put in front of it as a makeshift bed rail. The person behind the camera zooms in on his face, lashes casting long shadows over his cheeks. In the background, two girly voices can be heard, and then Amelie and Zoë move into frame. They get close to Senne’s face, studying him, as they discuss whether he’s really asleep. When Amelie lifts her hand poke him on the arm, the faceless camera person stops her. “No, don’t wake him, darling,” the man’s voice says before the camera gets shaky and the clip ends.

Senne shakes his head with a smile. “That last clip is Amelie down to a tee. She was such a little terror.”

“But you loved her for it.” It’s not a question.

“I did.” He locks his phone and places it on the nightstand next to him. “I do.”

Zoë squeezes his hand, letting silence settle between them. She wonders how different life would have been if their parents were still friends, wonders if they’d be sitting here, too. There’s something in her heart that tells her yes, they would’ve ended up together. Maybe not right now, not right here, but eventually. She can’t picture a world in which she doesn’t love Senne.

“I want that one day,” Senne says wishfully, interrupting her thoughts. He unlaces his fingers from hers and loosely wraps his arm around her shoulder instead.

She settles into his side. “Hm?”

“A family. Kids.”

There’s a confidence in his tone that tells her he’s thought about it before, that he sees children in his future as much as he sees her in it. It sounds simple, the way children and family are undeniably correlated in his mind, and Zoë envies him for it.

She doesn’t know what she wants, doesn’t know if her biological clock will ever go off. Or maybe she does know, but society has trained her to think she might change her mind, when she’s older, when she meets the right man, when her friends have children of their own. Either way, it’s not a conversation she wants to have with Senne right now, not one she feels ready to have.

Maybe her silence tells Senne all he needs to know anyway, because he kisses her forehead and then her cheek, successfully distracting her from spiralling further into her own mind.

“I know you’re too rational to believe in higher powers, but can we agree, just this once, that fate brought us together again?”

She smiles. “Think it’s actually God testing me.”

Immediately, she slides down to escape his fingers that are trying to poke her in the ribs, but Senne manages to jab a finger to the side of her neck and her body cramps up involuntarily, a pained laugh rolling from her lips.

When she tries to push his hand away, he grabs her wrists, easily pinning them to the mattress as he hovers above her.

“I want to make a deal.”

Her eyebrows lift. “What kind of deal?”

“For the next twenty-four hours, you are not allowed to make sarcastic comebacks when I say something sweet.”

“Or else?” she challenges, only slightly distracted by the way the sunlight makes Senne’s eyes glow.

“Or else I’m making you watch all three Lord Of The Rings films with me.”

Zoë groans. There is little she finds more boring than Lord Of The Rings, but by some twisted play of the universe, they are Senne’s favourite movies. She doesn’t understand why, can’t match Senne’s cool dude personality to the nerdy appeal of the series, but she’s not gonna start that argument right now. So far, she’s been able to escape every time he watches them, but this bet might change that sooner than she’d like.

“Deal.”

He’s still pinning her down and she struggles against his hold once more, willing him to duck down and kiss her. He watches her with an amused smile before giving in, tangling one hand in her hair as the other comes to rest on her waist, connecting their mouths.

It’s easy to get lost in the feeling of their lips pressed together and Senne’s hands on her. His body presses against her, no longer holding himself up, but right before Zoë has to break away for air, he flips them over, legs tangling together.

Time escapes her, but eventually, she pulls away, trailing kisses down his throat. She rests her chin on his chest, getting a very flattering under-the-chin view of Senne.

“Whatever it is that brought us back together,” she says softly, looking up at him, “whether it’s fate or God or the universe or pure coincidence – I’m glad it did.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos take a second but make my day :)  
Find me on Twitter: @nothingbutniall.


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